I was able to arrive at self-awareness at the age of 45,when my life exploded before my eyes. The marriage of 23 years was no longer working, I couldn’t make head or tails out of what my 6 diget income to cover my 7 diget overhead was all about. I would fleetingly spend time with my children after many pleas of ‘when are you going to be done working and why are you so stressed out?’ I was becoming a liability to my own life.

To resolve most of what I was beginning to see as ambivalent feelings, I needed to feel a strong and helpful sense of myself. Such an awareness doesn’t happen overnight, and no one’s self-awareness is permanent. Everyone has the capacity for growth, and for self-awareness, through an honest encounter with reality. That was the problem…..I was Dying in My Denial of how I faced my problems. When I stopped avoiding the issues and meet them directly, always trying to resolve them, they started to lose their power that they held over me. Avoidance had always been my side kick.It has always been shown to me that my perpetual state of avoidance was because of my inability to accept my life or my situation that I would continually find myself in. I was a fixer, enabler, codependant-compliant.

The real test came when I was willing to confide and share my first accurate self-survey. When I was able to release the years of dammed-up emotions and break out of my avoidance of emotions that I held in solitary confinement; I was able to actually feel the pain diminish, watch the power they held over me subside and be a witness to having a healing tranquility come over my being. Serenity seeped into the chaos of my life when I accepted that what I was going through was life, and that God would help through my difficulties-and much more. It had been my tendency to recoil from taking responsibility for anything: I would deny, ignore, blame and finally avoid. Then it seemed as one day I was able to honestly look,admit and accept. Here started the new found freedom in the healing and the recovery that lead to enlarging my self-awareness through the experience of looking ,admitting and accepting. Taking responsibility and ownership in what is my part in this was the beginning of being released from life -long bondage of self.

Peace is only possible for me when I let go of expectations. When I’m trapped in thoughts about what I want and what I should be coming to me, I’m in a state of fear or anxious anticipation and this is not conducive to furthering my self-awareness. When I’m in one of these states I look for fear. Fear is always the corroding thread of my distress: Fear of failure,fear of others’ opinions; fear of harm and a multitude of other harmful fearful thought. There can be no serenity when I’m captivated with the future, or regretting the past. My self-awarness of the moment and what is happening in the moment goes down the toilet. For me it has been a full-time job to be in the mindful moment of what is actually transpiring with what I’m feeling.

So much of my growth in self-awareness has been being able to abort all feelings that are no longer serving my serenity and peace of mind. All of my life had been dependant on other people for my emotional needs and security, but today I chose not to live that way. I have given up believing that any human power can relieve of that empty feeling or feelings of validation that I can only attend to with Gods love. When I am in this state of self-awareness, I can achieve a greater potential for myself by developing an ever-increasing willingness to avail myself of the guidance and direction of God and what he has called me to do and be a part of.

From; Silent Screams from the Hamptons Chapter 19 Calling All Angels

Page 180

In the grips of my alcoholism, I was close to spiritual death. I began attending a church for the first time in thirty-five years in search of spiritual direction. I had heard good things about a new Pastor and his wife, just arrived missionaries from Equador. Through themI learned about a God of second chances. This stirred a sense of divine spirit that filled the empty void in my life with a power of love. I started to become quieter in my think and move from my heart.

Christa Jan Ryan, Author of
Silent Screams from the Hamptons and From the Depths of a Woman’s Soul